“Herr Hagen.” The heels clicked smartly together. “Heil Hitler.”
“Heil. It’s good of you to think of me, Herr Gruppenführer.”
The smile was there, but the look was that of a wounded cobra.
“Please accept our apologies for the delay. Our Otto will, no doubt, have told you of our little problem.”
“If you’ll pardon my saying so, Herr Gruppenführer, murders aren’t your normal concern, are they?”
“This one was. But … he evaded us. No doubt the woman’s family will insist we try again. They say she was beautiful. Certainly in death she was.”
Hagen wanted to scream at him, What the hell are you on about? but managed to hold himself erect. A somewhat shabby businessman, tall, rawboned and loose, his suit jacket open, looking lost. A whole trainload of people delayed and inconvenienced for this. A classic Gestapo ploy.
“I trust you had a pleasant trip this time?” asked Heydrich. One could tell nothing from the look in those eyes.
“It went very well.”
“Yes. A substantial order, I believe, from the Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach. He places great faith in you, Herr Hagen. We must get to know one another, I think. Yes … yes, that would be best. To our … how should I say it? Our mutual benefit. Yes, our common interest.”
Hagen found himself replying evenly, “I’d like that very much, Herr Gruppenführer.”
“Good! Then until your next visit, Heil Hitler.”
Someone brought his cases and put them on the train. Hagen watched Heydrich until the staff car had disappeared from view.
Krantz said, “Herr Hagen, your train is waiting.”
His stomach tightened. A wave of panic swept through him. Nodding, he heard himself say “Thanks.”
The Bavarian was reading another newspaper. The hausfrau was knitting like the damned. The corporal pulled his boots in, then got to his feet and put Hagen’s cases into the luggage racks. The woman and her son sat there looking up at him. She was ashen. Exhaustion ringed her eyes.
The train began to move and still she found the will to look at him.
Her ring was gone. The Jager had been given to the customs inspector who had gone through her bags. Even with the worry over Heydrich still very much with him, he found he could notice things like this. A customs inspector who could be bribed. The fifth counter over, against the far wall. A diamond … Rachel … Herr Klees …
Had Heydrich and Krantz been totally unaware of it?
Hagen sat down, but still the woman continued to gaze at him. Finally he reached across the compartment and took her gently by the hand. “It’s over. You needn’t go back. Just try to sleep.”
“You knew him. I saw you talking to him. You didn’t tell him about us.”
Sadly he shook his head. “How could I have done such a thing?”
She closed her other hand over his and for a time, as the train gathered speed and crossed the border into Holland, they held on to each other like that, two perfect strangers, and yet not strangers at all.
The shop was on the Prinsengracht, one of the original canals that had been dug in the seventeenth century to bring freight to all parts of old Amsterdam. Canal houses lined the waterway. Built shoulder to shoulder of red or brown brick and five stories high, their gabled crowns rose precipitously in ornate steps, bells and cornices to jutting hoist beams, red-tiled, steeply pitched roofs and an open, slotted sky.
Directly in front of the shop, across a narrow stretch of pavement and under the leafy branches of a linden, a houseboat lay moored. Barges plied the waterway. Here and there along the canal others were tied up. A scattering of tourists strolled noisily in the midmorning sun. From time to time a clerk or a typist hurried by on a bicycle. Otherwise, the canal was at peace. The trees cast their shade.
Hagen found a table at a small cafe on the opposite side of the canal. From there he had a good view of the shop. Ordering coffee and rolls, he forced himself to wait.
Heydrich was still foremost in his mind. He still couldn’t figure out what the bastard had wanted. To meet was one thing, to do so in front of a trainload of people, another. And Krantz … what had been the matter with him?
On leaving his hotel that morning he’d been followed. He had Krantz to thank for having smartened him up. He’d picked out the two of them—older men, good ones, too—then had searched for the third man and found him loitering behind. Dutch fascists. Heydrich already had them in place.
They’d played leapfrog with him, the one moving on ahead, the other two dropping behind, he letting them follow him only so far.
From now on he’d have to be extremely careful.
“Your coffee, mijnheer, it is not good?”
Startled from his thoughts, he smiled up at the waitress. “I must have dozed off. Bring me another, will you? It’s the sun.”
Concern showed in her sky-blue eyes. “You do look tired. Stay as long as you wish.”
Would that he could.
Just before noon a woman went into the Dutchman’s shop. Otherwise business was dead.
Hagen paid his bill, found the nearest bridge and went back along the canal and into the shop.
The Dutchman was just about to lock up for lunch. “Mijnheer Hagen—” he blurted. “This is an unexpected pleasure. You should have telephoned. You might not have found me in.”
The florid, fleshy cheeks tightened. The pallid eyes flicked to the window, to the street beyond the clutter of pawnable refuse, the violins and horns, the guitars, banjos and cameras that hung in weary anticipation of a buyer.
Hagen closed the door and put the lock on, pausing only to hang the Out for Lunch sign. The Dutchman retreated behind the counter by the cash drawer. Hagen took one look about the shop, took in the incredible maze of cast-off tables and cabinets where silverware, china, soup tureens, old books and trays of jewelry lay asleep.
A cluster of seashells caught his eye. The stench of mold, age, sour sweat and stale cigar smoke stung his nostrils. Picking up a butcher knife, he felt the edge. He chose another and then another, as if dissatisfied with them all.
Klees broke at last. “Please, what is it, mijnheer?”
“You’ve been to the Antwerp Exchange and laid a complaint against its youngest dealer.”
The Dutchman gave a lusty snort. “I know nothing of this, my friend. What complaint? From me to those stuffy old bastards? Hah, you’ve got to be kidding. Why would I complain about you? Why would they listen to someone like me?”
He had a point. Hagen set the knife aside and made his way over to the counter. “What, exactly, did you do?”
The pale gray eyes narrowed. The Dutchman eased open a drawer, then flicked a glance to the street beyond and nervously wet his lips. “I went to see de Heer Wunsch to ask again that he help me.”
“But he threw you out. He turned you down.”
“Yes, that is correct.”
“Then what?”
The fingers moved to the drawer again. “I came back here. Nothing else.”
Hagen moved a little closer to the counter. Spreading out Bernard’s cable, he let the Dutchman read it.
Still the hand lingered by the drawer.
“I telephoned de Heer Wunsch last night when I got in, mijnheer. He told me that I was up against it, that you had laid a charge against me and that my seat on the Exchange was threatened. Now talk.”
The fingers moved. Hagen shot out a hand and jammed the drawer shut, catching the fingers in a vise!
The Dutchman cried out in pain. Thrown back against the shelves, he knocked some crystal loose. The glass shattered at his feet.
Easing the drawer open, Hagen released the fingers. Then he took the pistol, slipped open the breech, popped the shell and the clip and tossed everything back into the drawer. “I’m still waiting, mijnheer. I’m not leaving until you tell me what happened.”
Klees winced. Cradling the fingers of his right hand, he stared at Hagen. The pistol … the speed with which the
salesman had unloaded it … “You must believe me. I know nothing of this, mijnheer. Others must have used my name. Perhaps they made a simple telephone call.”
“Who?”
The Dutchman shrugged.
“Has anyone been to see you?”
Klees shook his head. “Am I under surveillance? Please, for the … the sake of others you must tell me.”
Hagen gave him a swift look. “You tell me how you get the stones.”
The wariness crept back. Again Klees glanced to the street. Satisfied, he said, “The pieces come out of Germany and I buy them when I can. Lately I’ve been taking the stones from their mountings as you yourself have advised. The deals are honest. I swear they are. I’ve invested heavily and want only to protect myself. Believe me, you and de Heer Wunsch are my only hope. I’ve already exhausted all other possibilities. It’s really not much to ask. A vault in London, what could be simpler for you to arrange?”
“Who do you get the pieces from?”
“Doctors, lawyers—who knows, it’s all the same. They need ready cash, and this I can supply.”
“Not from this rattrap.”
Klees showed no emotion. “I have other means. Savings. A—”
“A house down on the Oudezijds Voorburgwal?”
“The Achterburgwal. You know the inner city well, mijnheer. Perhaps you have visited with one of my girls.”
Hagen picked up the cable and began to refold it. “What do you keep the houseboat for? A floating bordello?”
The Dutchman didn’t smile. “You know very well the police would not allow this. The houseboat is where I live in summer.”
“Show me what you’ve acquired in the past few days.”
“There hasn’t been anything in for nearly a week.”
“Damn you, let me see it anyway.”
“Very well. If you will excuse me a moment, I will just go into the back, to the safe.”
“I’ll follow, if you don’t mind.”
Behind the shop there was an incredible warren of junk, piled here, piled there, swords, old muskets, several bass violins, trombones whose slides were dented, trumpets no one would want, packing cases, suitcases and trunks that had been pawned on arrival at the station or left unclaimed and bought at auction …
One of the workbenches held the guts of several cameras. Out of these, Klees had been attempting to assemble a salable item.
On a brick wall, across a sea of junk and seen through cluttered, open shelves, he had hung a collection of dolls, perhaps a hundred or more, of all sizes, all shapes. Some had bits of clothing. Most lacked an arm or a leg, even a head. A clown faced outward while his body was cruelly twisted the other way and hung by a thread of stuffing. Another nail held only a Rhineland maiden’s braided rope of flaxen hair.
Gobs of mortar protruded from between the bricks, tongues of gray against the red. One naked doll was running, another was pinned to the wall with her knees spread widely and her pants pulled down about her ankles. Yet another hung upside down with perpetually open eyes. One leg had been torn away.
Sunlight fled across the collection, casting shadows from the battered bars of a grimy window. Dust filtered in the light and still the dolls stared at him.
“You’ve quite a place.”
“Yes. Now, please, allow me a little privacy while I open the safe.”
Hagen looked at him. “How do I know you don’t keep another gun in there?”
“I do, but would I risk a charge of murder when it is yourself who is in trouble? Believe me, mijnheer, I’ve been along the road you travel. I know exactly what it’s like.”
The office was tiny, cut out of the warren with see-through shelves that revealed again in fragmented glimpses the rack of broken dolls, the dim gray clutter of broken hearts and shattered hopes.
The Dutchman knelt to turn the dials of an ancient safe. Across the desk, under the light, was spread a collection of what had once been antique jewelry. A cigar box held the scrapped mountings of several earlier forays, ready to be melted down and cast into wedges of silver and gold. Another box held a handful or two of second-rate stones. Some glass, some cheap bits of paste. Hagen let them trickle through his fingers.
Klees nudged him aside. “These came in last week. Please, I don’t know what this is all about, Mijnheer Hagen. No one has been to see me. I’ve said nothing to anyone, and I don’t know anything about a complaint against you.”
Among the pieces was the woman’s ring. Hardly a day had passed since he’d last seen her on the train.
Antwerp was beautiful in the early evening. It was a relief to be home at last, even if there was still trouble ahead. Because of the hour and the annual holidays, there was less traffic than usual on a Friday night.
Hagen stood outside the Central Railway Station. The office wasn’t far, the meeting with Bernard and the Committee scheduled for nine o’clock. He had a good hour to wait, time enough for a stroll. He couldn’t sit still, couldn’t eat. He had to get this meeting over with. So much depended on it.
Yet the heart of the city beckoned, and he wanted to feel a part of it again.
When he came to stand outside the boardinghouse where Arlette lived, he had to smile at himself, for his feet and a tramcar ride had led him where his mind had told him not to go.
She’d be off on holiday—at Ostend with her parents. When she returned to work she might, quite probably, find his office empty. In any case he couldn’t become involved.
Yet he had to see her.
The guild houses of the Grote Markt reminded him of those along the Prinsengracht. As he passed the corner of a street, two girls of seven or eight were skipping next a faded red brick wall. Unbidden, the images came to mind, the wall space filled with broken dolls, all shapes, all sizes, all races. Arlette …
The Nazis would wreck this place. They’d banish light and innocence.
Turning abruptly away, he headed for the office.
The Committee was waiting for him. They had purposely put off the meeting for an hour so as to have time to rehash the situation and come to a consensus before he arrived. It was all too clear they were far from happy.
Jacob Lietermann was the acknowledged leader of the Antwerp Diamond Exchange, a man of great integrity and immense experience. Well into his seventies, he still worked every day, still smoked his cigars when the doctor or his wife were not near and he thought he could get away with such things.
“Richard, you are punctual. That is good in a young man. Yes, very good.”
The dark eyes had lost none of their earnestness. A searcher all his life, Lietermann looked only for what was best in men and diamonds.
That look was questioning but then the moment passed.
“You know the others. Isaac Hond, Abraham Merensky and, of course, our Bernard, who has so graciously taken us into his confidence both as to the break-in at this office and to the fantastic deal the Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach has offered you.”
A twinkle momentarily appeared in those ancient eyes, flecks of curiosity.
Lietermann noticed the whisper of shock that news of the break-in had brought; he noticed the control, too, and counted these both positive signs. “To sell the Reich a year’s supply of industrial stones is no mean feat, young man.”
Hagen didn’t waver under his scrutiny. “I must apologize, Mijnheer Lietermann—gentlemen—you have me at a disadvantage. I’ve only just got in. Mijnheer Wunsch has not had a chance to brief me.”
That, too, was a good sign, the choice of words, the putting before all else responsibility to one’s employer. Lietermann took him kindly by the arm and led him to a chair.
“Richard, this is not a court of inquiry, but a gathering of friends. As you know, we have always settled things among ourselves. Have a seat, listen to Bernard while he tells you of the break-in, then of the charges against you, and lastly of his reasons for confiding in us so that all might have a say in supplying or not supplying the Reich with such a commitment.�
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The Antwerp Exchange ruled itself by this informal committee of its elders. Isaac Hond was bearded, dressed in a dark black suit as always and with the worried look of the perpetually nervous, for which he had, in truth, every reason, though now there was a scowl he did nothing to hide. It was through him, through this thin, pale little man, that all the important decisions of the trade passed. He had a mind for prices, for the trends and styles that set the trade in Paris, London and New York.
Abraham Merensky handled the delicate relationships that existed not only between the Exchange and the cartel in London, but between the dealers in the Antwerp bourses and between them and their workers. It was to him that fell the settling of squabbles, the righting of wrongs and the meting out of appropriate disciplinary action. The overseeing of the apprenticeships in each of the shops also fell to him, a task that was not always easy. Like the others, he had an exhaustive knowledge of the trade. He, too, was getting on, and Hagen, as he listened carefully to Bernard, wondered what these men would really do if the crunch were to come.
They’d best all go to London first so as to keep their businesses intact. And then, what then? New York or Israel.
From behind his desk Bernard Wunsch summed things up. “So, Richard, you see we’re not without our reasons for concern. Not only have the office and your apartment been broken into and your file almost certainly photographed, but some anonymous person has telephoned Mijnheer Merensky and laid charges against you not only of illegally trading in diamonds but of assisting de Heer Klees in the transport of stolen gemstones.”
“The stones aren’t stolen—at least, not technically. Klees buys them from destitute refugees who are on the run.”
“But are you dealing with him, Mijnheer Hagen?” asked Merensky.
“Of course not. On my way home, I went to see him to clarify things. Klees emphatically denies he telephoned you.”
Isaac Hond was adamant. “The caller has said there will be proof.”
“Did he appear in person? Since when would you convict a man on such flimsiness? I told Klees we’d have nothing to do with him. Bernard was left a memo to this effect.”
Wunsch gave a nod and reached for his cigarettes. Richard was handling himself well, but there was still more to come.
The Alice Factor Page 9